I got a random UnicodeDecodeError while trying to install a module with distutils. Traced it back and it being my name having a non-ascii character floating around in my environment.

I'm including two patches: subprocess_errors_simple_1.patch simply adds 'errors="replace"' to the stdin, stdout and stderr, while subprocess_distutils_errors_1.patch fixes this a bit more thoroughly.

I haven't added any tests yet, I'll add them to the proper patch when a concensus on which one to use is reached.